kristoff wrote: Sat Apr 04, 2009 5:34 am I have met a few "cured" christians, though - generally, a very happy lot.

mrt (imported) wrote: Mon Apr 06, 2009 7:09 pm What I can't be cured of being White?! Damn! I wonder things would be if there was ZERO stigma to being gay? Would more people be Gay? Or just admit it? Or would more people dabble and try bisexuality? Or is it strictly wiring and people just are or not? Is there ANY choice (or is it a factor) in other words?

mina.magpie (imported) wrote: Mon Apr 06, 2009 4:40 am Quoted for sooooooooo much truth.

rant

I don't get why this even matters. What you do with another consenting adult, who you fall in love with or desire - what the hell does it have to do with anybody else, and why should it matter if it's biological or environmental or a choice? I mean, hell, why should it even be an either-or kinda thing? We're such complex creatures that most likely all of those factors and many more have varying degrees of influence, varying also from one person to the next. That's as true of homosexuality as it is of everything else that makes us who we are! Aaaargh!

/rant

The world would be so much better off if we could all just keep to a simple truth: "An it harm none, do as ye will is the whole of the law."

mrt (imported) wrote: Mon Apr 06, 2009 7:09 pm I wonder things would be if there was ZERO stigma to being gay? Would more people be Gay? Or just admit it? Or would more people dabble and try bisexuality? Or is it strictly wiring and people just are or not? Is there ANY choice (or is it a factor) in other words?

bobover3 (imported) wrote: Mon Apr 06, 2009 9:55 pm The argument about whether homosexuality can be cured is political. Heterosexual militants say that if sexuality is a choice then there's a moral dimension to that choice, and homosexuals have chosen wrongly; they should feel guilt and shame, submit to therapy or re-education or religious uplift, and be subject to punishment or limitation of civil rights. Homosexual militants say that if sexuality is not a choice, then homosexuals have not chosen to be what they are, so they bear no moral responsibility; they are blameless, and should not be subject to organized efforts to change them or punish them. Both camps are fierce in their insistence. Both camps try to drag science into what is at bottom a political dispute, and so end up with pseudo-science.

My own views will displease both sides. The claim that homosexuals must be as they are backfires on homosexual militants, because, to the heterosexuals, that's a good reason to restrict or persecute homosexuals. (I don't hold hornets morally culpable for stinging me - they're just following their nature - but I wouldn't allow a hornet's nest inside my home.) Yet the claim that homosexuals are guilty of an immoral choice backfires on heterosexual militants, because, to the homosexuals, their banishment from proper society forces them into becoming antagonists of that society, and subversive, which would otherwise be unlikely. (If I beat someone, I can't complain that he doesn't love me.) In their pursuit of unity and harmony, the heterosexuals foment the opposite. The moment I conceive that someone is not one of us, but one of them, I make him my enemy.

So please, everyone, get used to the fact that there are both heterosexuals and homosexuals in this world. There always have been. There always will be. Stop looking for pseudo-scientific rationales for your differences. Nature and nurture are inextricably mingled parts of humanity. Learn to live with one another as equals.